Each rifing art by just gradation moves,
Toil builds on toil, and age on age improves :
The Muse alone unequal dealt her rage,

And grac❜d with noblest pomp her earliest stage.
Preferv'd thro' time, the fpeaking scenes impart
Each changeful wifh of Phædra's tortur'd heart:
Or paint the curfe, that mark'd the
A bed incestuous, and a father flain.

Theban's [reign,

With kind concern our pitying eyes o'erflow,
Trace the fad tale, and own another's woe.

To Rome remov'd, with wit fecure to please,
The comic fifters kept their native ease.
With jealous fear declining Greece beheld
Her own Menander's art almoft excell'd!
But every Mufe effay'd to raise in vain
Some labour'd rival of her tragic strain ;
Ilyffus' laurels, tho' transferr'd with toil,
Droop'd their fair leaves, nor knew th'

The Oedipus of Sophocles,

[foil. unfriendly

As

As arts expir'd, refiftless Dulnefs rofe;

Goths, priests, or Vandals,- all were Learning's

Till Julius firft recall'd each exil'd maid,

[foes.

And Cofmo own'd them in th' Etrurian fhade:

Then deeply skill'd in love's engaging theme,
The foft Provencial pass'd to Arno's stream :
With graceful ease the wanton lyre he ftrung,
Sweet flow'd the lays-but love was all he fung:
The gay defcription could not fail to move;
For, led by nature, all are friends to love.

But heaven, ftill various in its works, decreed
The perfe& boaft of time should last fucceed.
The beauteous union must appear at length,
Of Tuscan fancy, and Athenian ftrength :
One greater Muse Eliza's reign adorn,
And even a Shakespear to her fame be born!

Yet ah! fo bright her morning's opening ray,
In vain our Britain hop'd an equal day!

Julius II, the immediate predeceffor of Leo X,

No

No fecond growth the western ifle could bear,
At once exhausted with too rich a year.

Too nicely Johnfon knew the critic's part;
Nature in him was almoft loft in art.

Of fofter mold the gentle Fletcher came,

The next in order, as the next in name.

With pleas'd attention 'midft his fcenes we find
Each glowing thought, that warms the female mind;
Each melting figh, and every tender tear,

The lover's wishes, and the virgin's fear.
His every ftrain the Smiles and Graces own;
But ftronger Shakespear felt for man alone:
Drawn by his pen, our ruder paffions ftand
Th' unrivall'd picture of his early hand.

+ With gradual feps, and flow, exacter France Saw Art's fair empire o'er her shores advance :

* Their characters are thus diftinguished by Mr. Dryden, About the time of Shakespear, the poet Hardy was in great repute in France. He wrote, according to Fontenelle, fix hundred plays. The French poets after him applied themfelves in general to the correct improvement of the ftage, which was almoft totally difregarded by thofe of our own country, Johnfon excepted.

By

By length of toil a bright perfection knew,
Correctly bold, and just in all she drew.

Till late Corneille, with † Lucan's spirit fir'd,
Breath'd the free ftrain, as Rome and He inspir'd :
And claffic judgment gain'd to fweet Racine
The temperate ftrength of Maro's chaster line.

But wilder far the British laurel fpread,
And wreaths lefs artful crown our poet's head.
Yet He alone to every fçene could give.

Th' hiftorian's truth, and bid the manners live.
Wak'd at his call I view, with glad furprize,
Majestic forms of mighty monarchs rise.
There Henry's trumpets fpread their loud alarms,
And laurel'd Conquest waits her hero's arms.
Here gentler Edward claims a pitying figh,
Scarce born to honours, and fo foon to die!
Yet fhall thy throne, unhappy infant, bring
No beam of comfort to the guilty king:

The favourite author of the elder Corneille,

The

The time fhall come, when Glo'fter's heart shall
In life's laft hours, with horror of the deed: [bleed
When dreary visions shall at last present

Thy vengeful image in the midnight tent:
Thy hand unseen the fecret death fhall bear, [spear
Blunt the weak fword, and break th' oppreffive

Where'er we turn, by fancy charm'd, we find
Some fweet illufion of the cheated mind.

Oft, wild of wing, she calls the foul to rove
With humbler nature, in the rural grove;
Where fwains contented own the quiet fcene,
And twilight fairies tread the circled green :
Drefs'd by her hand, the woods and valleys fmile,
And Spring diffufive decks th' inchanted ifle.

O more than all in powerful genius bleft,
Come, take thine empire o'er the willing breaft!
Whate'er the wounds this youthful heart shall feel,
Thy fongs fupport me, and thy morals heal!

*Tempus erit Turno, magno cùm optaverit emptum Intactum pallanta, &c.

There